


You Don't See Me

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: Love On His Arms [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Episode: s02e12 You Are Not Your Own, Ragnor Fell - Freeform, Ragnor's ghost, Self-Harm, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 19:17:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15613152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: When you've found your way to the ledge once, there's always a risk you'll find your way there, again.





	You Don't See Me

**Author's Note:**

> This one broke my heart to write. Just leave me over here, brokenhearted, okay?
> 
> Also, I've been meaning to sneak Ragnor's ghost into the main series for AGES, but I just couldn't figure out how... so, he'll be here in the Behind the Scenes...

_Difficult not to feel a little bit,_  
_Disappointed, and passed over,_  
_When I've looked right through,_  
_See you naked but oblivious._  
  
_And you don't see me._  
_But I threw you the obvious,_  
_Just to see if there's more behind the,_  
_Eyes of a fallen angel, eyes of a tragedy._  
~3 Libras, A Perfect Circle

* * *

 The loft is empty again and he is alone with his racing thoughts, with the magic that ripples beneath his skin, it should be a comfort, but it isn’t. Nothing about today has been a comfort. His magic betrayed him, obeyed a man who despises him, who wants him dead and is willing to do anything to achieve that goal. His boyfriend betrayed him, obeyed a woman who was going to commit cold blooded murder because she could, because the Clave would let her get away with it. The magic of the omamori betrayed him, brought him nothing but bad luck and danger.

“I really wish you’d be more careful.” Magnus scowls at the voice in his ears, and spins to glare at the offender.

“You go away.” He mutters, because he wishes with all his might that Ragnor was really here with him now, but Ragnor isn’t here, Ragnor will never be there for him again, because Ragnor is dead. Though his ghost may have taken to wandering, it’s nothing but a sliver of Ragnor’s soul that got lost on its way to the afterlife. It’s _nothing_ , and Magnus doesn’t want to indulge him today, couldn’t bear it if even a _sliver_ of Ragnor betrayed him today.

“My precious boy, I am sorry for this, love has never been kind to you.” Ragnor’s ghost says, before fading away. Magnus reaches out for him, regretting immediately his decision to send Ragnor away, he stumbles and falls to his knees, tears springing in his eyes.

“Come back. I need you, I-I need someone.” He sobs, feels the aching in his chest that he hasn’t felt in a hundred years. The tearing agony of a heart breaking, being torn asunder by betrayal he never saw coming, again.  Crying, he pushes to his feet, grabs a bottle of gin from his drinks cart and summons his mother’s keris as he stumbles up the stairwell to the roof, almost slipping a few times, his feet so unsteady beneath him. He collapses to his knees and doubles over when he reaches the rooftop, his body wracked with sobs, and his chest so tight he thinks he might stop breathing.

He takes a good swig of the gin and tries to calm himself down, but it’s hard, so, so hard. His hands shake as he conjures a beautiful rose on his palm, the thorns pricking his skin, but he doesn’t even flinch.

“He loves me.” He whispers, his voice trembling in tune with his hands as he pulls a petal free and lets it float away on the wind. “He loves me not.” He says, pulling yet another petal free, and he continues like this until there’s only one petal left. “He loves me.” He chokes, plucking the petal free and giving it to the wind, shoulders shaking as he gives into his heartache once more.

* * *

When he can breathe again without feeling like every single breath is a stab to his heart, he grabs up his mother’s keris, holds it gently in his hands, even as he imagines what it would feel like to plunge it into his flesh, as his mother did, over and over and over again, until he had no strength left. Instead, he starts cutting tally marks into the back of his hand, each representing a reason to die. He gets so caught up in it that when his mind finally stumbles upon a brick wall of a reason to stay, his hand is drenched in blood.

“Alexander.” He murmurs under his breath, like it is something sacred, and before today, it was. Before today it was all consuming, all encompassing, it was everything. It was the miracle that unlocked something in him, that saved him from a world without colour, without love, without substance. It was his own personal prayer, his guardian angel. But now? Now he doesn’t know what it is. When he was at the darkest moment, when he called that name, and there was no recognition, only anger and something so dark and cold he’s still terrified of it, even now. “Alexander.” He grips his head in his hands, smearing the blood across his face as his fingers snake through his hair and he moans, desperate and agonized, and so bereft. Where does he go from here? Where do _they_ go? Is there still a they? Do they still have a chance? “Alexander.” He mutters, and disentangles his fingers, grabs up the gin bottle again, his hand holding so tight he thinks he might shatter the bottle, he doesn’t though, instead he takes a gulp of the burning liquid and laughs as it burns its way down his oesophagus.

He glances down at the lines on his hand and frowns, takes another drink when he thinks of Clary, and Dot, and Cat, and the children on the Sanctuary, and little Madzie. Then his mind wonders to his own bundle of joy, and he pauses. Thinks it says a lot about how far he and Raphael have drifted apart that he can’t decide whether Raphael is better off with him dead or not. So, ever one to try for compromise, he cuts a tally in his hand and takes a large drink, maybe that’s cheating, but who the fuck is gonna criticise?

He spends a good while like that, cutting his reasons to go into the back of his hand, and drinking away his reasons to stay, doing both when he can’t decide between the two. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the sun starts to rise into the sky and it catches him off guard. The sight of the sunrise pulls a surprised gasp from his lips, and he lies on his rooftop and just watches the sunrise, the gin and the keris forgotten beside him.

It is a slow realization that he has survived, that the night had been long and so very dark, but he’s survived. As he has survived every night before, and as he has no reason to doubt he will survive every night hence. He banishes the gin somewhere even he doesn’t know, and casts a sobering spell on himself before healing his hand. He magically cleans away all the blood on him and around him, and then with more care than perhaps it deserves, he magics his mother’s keris back to its proper place.

Then he stands to face the day.

* * *

The first task of the day is to have a shower and change into clothing that wasn’t covered in blood just a few hours earlier, once accomplished, he stumbles out to the kitchen, scowls at the empty fridge and goes to sit on the couch with a conjured bowl of cereal. When his wards alert him to someone at his door, he doesn’t move, merely magics the door see-through so he can check who is there. His entire body tenses up, and he feels his insides grow cold at the sight of his boyfriend. Feels the panic bubbling in the back of his mind that screams at him to flee, he ignores it, shakes it off, and magically seals the door, so even when Alec uses his key, the door refuses to obey him. Magnus turns away, refuses to feel guilty for hiding. Thinks he’s doing pretty great for someone who was five seconds away from killing themselves last night.

When Alec is gone, Magnus sinks far down into the cushions of the couch and cries deep, heart wrenching sobs as he calls for Alexander. He wants so much to chase after Alec and fall into his arms and promise that nothing has changed between them, but he can’t, because at the same time, he never, ever wants to see Alec again. Never wants to feel his arms around him again, never wants to kiss him again, he just never wants to see Alexander Lightwood again.

But that’s perhaps the biggest lie he’s ever tried to tell himself, isn’t it?

* * *

Days pass, and finally he can put a smile on his face and it doesn’t waver, not even when he conjures an illusion of Alec before him, not even when he conjures an illusion of Camille. Not even when he thinks about being back in that cell, with Alec shoving him up against the wall, standing back as he was to be killed. Magnus thinks he’s doing pretty well for someone who was pretty certain they were gonna splatter their brains all over the pavement just a few days past.

Then Alec comes knocking again, and Magnus lets him in with a smile -because he can now, he knows how to do that again- and a kiss -because he’s practiced that now, too - and then all too suddenly he feels it slipping. Wishes he’d never opened the stupid door, wishes he’d never opened his stupid heart, wishes he’d never even bothered at all.

 _“Magnus, Shadowhunters are being slaughtered.”_ Magnus wants to yell back that Downworlders have been slaughtered by Shadowhunters for a thousand years, are _still_ being slaughtered by Shadowhunters, and the Shadowhunters never even gave a single ounce of shit, so why the hell should he care when the reverse becomes true? But that’s not the done thing, that’s not the way he is, so he doesn’t say that, even though he wishes so much that he does. _"Let's not be overdramatic."_

Magnus feels himself slipping, feels the hysteria rising in his chest, why did he open that stupid door? But he's the High Warlock of Brooklyn, and Alec is just some stupid, young, fool Shadowhunter, he's not gonna see Magnus break, _not ever_. Magnus chased this man down the aisle, but he's not going to do that again, thinks if he could have a do over, he wouldn't put in the effort again. Thinks if he ever dabbles in Time Magic, the delicious and seductive and so dangerous Time Magic, that he'll go back and prevent his fool self from even doing it in the first place. Alec wants to marry Lydia? Why stop him?

He gives over the hair, and with it he surrenders whatever feelings he has for this Shadowhunter, gives them back to the man they belong to, because this Alec isn't _his_ Alec. This Alexander isn't the Alexander he thought he was. His Alexander would never have done the things this Alexander has done, would never ask what this Alexander is asking. So, clearly, his Alexander is dead, perhaps never existed in the first place, and that's just fine. Magnus survived Camille's betrayal, he survived by the skin of his teeth, but he survived all the same. Why should Alexander's betrayal be any different? _Maybe_ , his traitorous mind thinks, _maybe it's because this one came with a warning scrawled all over his skin, 'this man is a killer', and you chose to ignore it with everything that you were._

 _“Get out.”_ And when Alec doesn’t leave immediately, Magnus almost shatters, almost lets his treasonous magic out to defend him, almost lets it lash out in thick, horrible, crushing waves of hellfire, but he doesn’t. Instead, he channels it into opening the door, the open invitation for Alec to get the fuck away from him, because Magnus can’t even stand to look at him. Just like that he’s back to feeling that desolate feeling in his chest, wondering if there’s any point to stay, wondering just what ‘Alexander’ means to him, what 'Alexander' _meant_ to him, whether he was a blessing or a curse, whether he still is.

One thing he promises himself, though, next time, he’s going to figure out if he inherited his father’s wings as well as his eyes.

* * *

_Here I am expecting just a little bit,_  
_Too much from the wounded._  
_But I see, see through it all,_  
_See through, see you._

 _Cause I threw you the obvious,_  
_To see what occurs behind the,_  
_Eyes of a fallen angel,_  
_Eyes of a tragedy, oh well_.  
_Oh well, apparently nothing._  
_Apparently nothing, at all._

 _You don't, you don't, you don't see me at all._  
~3 Libras, A Perfect Circle


End file.
